Description:

The 15 January 2022 climactic eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai produced an explosion in the atmosphere of a size that has not been documented in the modern geophysical record. The event generated a broad range of atmospheric phenomena, including atmospheric shock waves, sonic booms, tsunami waves, gravity waves, and even Lamb waves that circled the globe several times. Numerous anomalies were recorded around the world reaching the upper thermosphere and ionosphere several hundred kilometers above the ground. This session will discuss multi-technology observations and simulations of this extraordinary event and highlight how such rare physical phenomena provides a natural laboratory to better understand connections between the terrestrial and the near-earth space environment.